[PA-NJ Glassblowers] "Sea Creatures in Glass" (Blaschka) to open May 24 at the Harvard Museum of Natural History

Tony Patti gaffer at glassblower.info
Sun May 4 12:12:04 EDT 2014



 

http://mcz.harvard.edu/collections/blaschka_coll.html

 


Sea Creatures in Glass to open May 24 at the Harvard Museum of Natural
History

 

Exhibit of Harvard's Blaschka glass animals includes models off display for
decades

 

Many years before they were commissioned by Harvard University to make the
<http://www.hmnh.harvard.edu/the_glass_flowers.html> "Glass Flowers,"

father and son artists Leopold and Rudolf Blaschka meticulously shaped glass
and sometimes

wire into lifelike models of marine animals. Renowned for their beauty and
exacting detail, the

Blaschka invertebrate models were commissioned by universities and museums
throughout the

world during the nineteenth century.

 

Harvard Museum of Natural History will soon open a new permanent display of
several dozen

models from the Museum of Comparative Zoology's collection of 430 Blaschka
invertebrate models <http://mcz.harvard.edu/collections/blaschka_coll.html> 

of both marine and terrestrial species. This display, at the far end of the
museum's Mollusks:

Shelled Masters of the Marine Realm exhibition, includes some 30 models that
were not part of

the museum's 2008 exhibition (also entitled Sea Creatures in Glass) which
closed in March 2009.

The new exhibit will feature over 60 of these spectacular glass animals-many
of which will be on

public display for the first time since Harvard began acquiring them in
1878. Delicate jellyfish and

anemones, octopus, tentacled squid, bizarre-looking sea slugs or
nudibranchs, and other softbodied

sea creatures captured in glass are a sparkling testament to the Blaschka
legacy.

 

The exhibit is the culmination of the Museum of Comparative Zoology's near
completion of an

eight-year project to curate, clean, and repair all of their 430
invertebrate models. The Blaschkas'

glass work was mostly intact, but over the 125 years, many of the models
suffered the failure of

the original nineteenth-century animal hide glue used in their construction.
These faulty contact

points had to be painstakingly restored with a reversible, archival
adhesive. Support for the Sea

Creatures in Glass exhibit is made possible by a generous gift in memory of
Melvin R. Seiden,

Harvard AB 1952, LLB 1955.

 

Jane Pickering, Executive Director of the Harvard Museums of Science &
Culture notes that "while

the Glass Flowers get much of the attention at Harvard, I think these far
earlier invertebrate

models are equally stunning and demonstrate the incredible skill and
artistry of the Blaschkas.

Thanks to this wonderful donation we are now able to mount a permanent
display of these

spectacular models that have been safeguarded in the collections and
out-of-sight for too long,"

she states.

 

"It's so exciting to have these exquisite glass sculptures on public display
at the Harvard Museum

of Natural History," commented Dr. James Hanken, Alexander Agassiz Professor
of Zoology at

Harvard and Director of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. "They are not
only beautiful, but

anatomically precise and scientifically valuable. They could still serve as
teaching models of these

invertebrates, which can be so difficult to preserve and display."

 

Employing the same techniques used a decade later to create the world-famous
Glass Flowers,

to shape the glass animals, the Blaschkas used the standard flame-working or
lampworking

methodology, bending over a small alcohol lamp to work glass rods, tubes,
and minute pieces of

glass. Melted over the high heat, the glass was then shaped using simple
tools and reassembled

by again heating the glass to fuse the pieces. The Harvard Museum of Natural
History also

displays Leopold Blaschka's well-worn wooden lampworking table, along with
his lamp, shears,

tweezers, and other tools used to shape the hot glass.

 

Together with Harvard's Ware Collection of Glass Models of Plants, with over
3,200 glass

flowers, fruits, and plant sections on display, these newly cleaned and
restored glass animals

now comprise the largest Blaschka collection on display anywhere in the
world. These

exquisite models of marine invertebrates further testify to the amazing
skill and artistry of the

extraordinary men who created them.

 

# # #

 

About the Harvard Museum of Natural History

One of the Harvard Museums of Science & Culture, the Harvard Museum of
Natural History

is located at 26 Oxford Street, Cambridge, on the Harvard campus, a 7-minute
walk from the

Harvard Square Red Line MBTA station. The museum is wheelchair accessible.
The museum is

open 9:00 am to 5:00 pm, 361 days/year (closed Thanksgiving, December 24,
25, and January

1). Admission: adults $12; seniors and students, $10; youth ages 3-18, $8;
under 3 free. For

directions, exhibition schedules, lectures, and classes, see the Plan Your
Visit page on our website

or call 617.495.3045.

 

Media Contact:

Blue Magruder

Director of Public Relations and Marketing

Harvard Museum of Natural History

bluemagruder at hmnh.harvard.edu

617-496-0049

 

Released: April 28, 2014

Cambridge, MA

 

 

Enjoy,


Tony Patti
  
 <http://www.glassblower.info> www.glassblower.info
  
 <mailto:gaffer at glassblower.info> gaffer at glassblower.info

 <http://www.glassblower.info/qr-code.html> QR Code for Tony Patti -
www.glassblower.info

 

 

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